


tell me what was judith's sin

by chateauofmyheart



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, you don't have to like linda to read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24121720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chateauofmyheart/pseuds/chateauofmyheart
Summary: “Do you really think what you’re doing will save him?” he says.Thomas Shelby, Linda has learned, is a mean drunk.ora look into linda shelby's mind and her turn from devotion to disillusionment
Relationships: Arthur Shelby & Tommy Shelby, Arthur Shelby/Linda Shelby
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	tell me what was judith's sin

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even like linda that much? her use of religious sentiment as an agent to shame arthur makes me deeply uncomfortable but like. the hate towards her is unreal & i wrote this out of spite.
> 
> she's an interesting character! i'll hate to see what they do with her

“Do you really think what you’re doing will save him?” he says.

Thomas Shelby, Linda has learned, is a mean drunk. 

Like her mother was; vicious with words, not hands. Mindless as the drink makes them, the truth becomes inconsequential so long as what they say cuts as deeply as they intend it to. It’s an ugliness Linda knows she carries in herself as well– an inherited curse, her mother said once, when her head was clear enough to be ashamed, but Linda sees it as a test from God. Arthur, for all his split knuckles and weeping between clenched teeth and the bloodied collars she later has to wash, has been spared of it.

Thomas sits in the small pub chair like he knows he’s a sinner and wants to be recognized for it. He’s usually so put together, Linda thinks. Nothing polite about him now, legs spread like the devil and head lolling back slightly, watching her with cold, hooded eyes, palming the empty tumbler on the table like it’ll refill itself should he raise it again to his lips. 

With her at the door and Arthur swaying outside, eyes glazed and likely even drunker than he, Thomas is alone in his pub. _The Garrison._

On paper it’s Arthur’s, but she knows better. Thomas Shelby owns everything.

When she’d come in to get Arthur home –an hour and thirteen minutes past their agreed upon ten o’clock– to pull him from the booze-hazy grasp of perdition and bring him into the light of their God-blessed home, Thomas had let his careful mask of indifference slip and Linda had glimpsed the irritation she caused him plain on his face. Though she should not delight in such pettiness, it is gratifying to see a man so steeped in sin resent her presence.

“You think it’ll make any fucking difference at all, Linda? That– that _God”_ –the way he says it, fouling His name in his mouth with contempt, makes her stomach turn– “will save him, eh?”

Linda doesn’t respond to him. Doesn’t need to.

She knows her faith is true, and that what she’s doing is good. Arthur, she believes, can be good. She simply needs to guide his way, help him find his own light in the brightness of the Lord. What would a godless man like Thomas know of goodness?

“What Arthur has, you can’t pray it away,” he continues on, scorn curling his lips. She tugs at her coat, walks towards the door. She’ll hear no more slander of her husband. Arthur deserves better, deserves someone who has faith in him. Thomas has none– for his own brother! It hurts her heart, thinking of the cruelty Arthur must have learned to swallow from him.

Thomas’s voice stops her from opening the door immediately. Arthur shouldn’t have to hear this, she tells herself, pressing her hand against the handle, desperate to leave this den of sin, which is so mired in misery and foulness.

He says, “You think you’re his fucking medicine, Linda. You’re not.”

There’s a harsh sound from behind her, too rough, too ugly, too mean to be a laugh. “You’re closer to horse tranquilizer.”

Linda leaves him sitting in his pub, faithless and alone.

Thomas, in the end, is right. 

She’d wondered, many nights after her prayers, brushing the backs of her fingers down Arthur’s tight jaw, stubble rough against her skin as they lay side by side in bed, what had prompted Thomas to say such things. 

Easily dismissed as the drink, yes. Like her mother, picking at sores, spiteful. But now she knows it to have been a warning.

Not the warning he intended, of course. He wanted her gone, or perhaps just less, that much is clear, regardless of his begrudging respect –if it could be called that– for some of her more _useful_ skills. Thomas Shelby owns everything, including his brother. And she’d been wrestling that control away, tugging at the reins he had so firmly in hand, gently steering Arthur away from the track he’d run to death on.

And Thomas wants him on that track. Running to his death, hopped up on cocaine, until his legs give out. Bringing in money for the big man. He thinks that’s what Arthur wants, because that’s what he’s trained Arthur to want. 

Benevolent Thomas, nobly giving his brother what he wants. Making the sacrifice of making his brother a sacrifice. Such clemency!

As if one brother wasn’t enough.

So Linda is horse tranquilizer, then? Not healing the torn muscles or broken bones, just numbing everything down to nothing; keeping Arthur out of the running, pulling him off the tracks at moments _inopportune_ to the big man. Not any kind of redemption. All of God’s saving grace could not be enough for this family.

Yes, the pub was a warning: stop putting the work horse to sleep, Linda. You might give him too much one day, and then he’ll never race again, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?

Silly Linda. Let the loyal steed kill itself just to line Thomas Shelby’s greedy fucking pockets. 

But she won’t let that happen. Once she was doing it out of goodness, wasn’t she, holy like the sweet Madonna, pouring that goodness all over the floors of that filthy pub and their pretense of a life together? 

Once she was pure. Now she’s righteous. Now she’s Judith.

Too much horse tranquilizer puts the horse to sleep, isn’t that right, Thomas? So she stands here, doing her work in the dark but illuminated by God’s holy light, a different kind of horse tranquilizer in hand.

Poor Arthur just looks at her. No horse ever knows the tranquilizer for what it is, after all. Maybe he’s seeing her, finally, as He sees her: a woman born of brimstone, who consecrated her own ashes and now blazes in blessing. There is judgement in store for everyone, but she knows He will judge her fairly in what she has chosen to do. 

The merciful sleep she offered is too good for him. 

He can die on the track, then, for all she cares, put down like the beast he is; legs broken, cocaine heart frantically beating out his cursed brother’s name until the bullet enters his brain and sends him straight down to hell.

**Author's Note:**

> comments & kudos are always appreciated! if you want to get into it or you hate what you just read, im @chateauofmymind on tumblr :)


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